Archive for the ‘APPETIZERS / SNACKS’ Category
Pinwheels
This comes from a friend and is absolutely delicious. This is a base recipe, make with what you have on hand to make a few or many.
Ingredients
- large flour tortillas
- Cream cheese, softened
- Ranch dressing
- spring onion, sliced
- bell pepper, red, yellow, or orange, diced
- cheese, shredded, your choice, Cheddar would be good
- deli ham
- deli turkey
- smoked turkey
Instructions
- Lay out a tortilla, spread on some cream cheese and drizzle on some Ranch dressing, use a spoon and spread out the dressing.
- Sprinkle on some spring onion and bell pepper.
- Add slices of deli ham, turkey, and or smoked turkey as desired.
- Roll the tortilla up and secure with 1 or 2 toothpicks and place covered in the fridge for at least an hour.
- Remove, slice about 3/4 inch thick, enjoy.
Notes
Low cost.
Recipe and photo provided by Kevin Barnett and his original recipe is here.
United States.
United States.
Beef Taquitos
These sound really good, I have not had taquitos in 30 years. On my to make list for sure. Links to the shortcuts are listed in the Recipe Notes section.
Ingredients
- 350 grams ground beef, (3/4 lb)
- 1/4 cup onion, diced
- 1 clove garlic, smashed and finely minced
- 1/2 cup tomato sauce, OR make from a shortcut
- 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
- 1/2 cup green chilies, canned or fresh roasted
- cooking oil, for frying
- 12 small corn tortillas
To Serve, as desired
- salsa, OR make from a shortcut
- sour cream, OR make from a shortcut
- guacamole
Instructions
- In a large non stick pan, cook the ground beef and break up with a spatula as you cook, when no longer pink, drain the fat then add the onion and garlic and cook until the onion is soft.
- Add the cumin, chilies, and tomato sauce to the pan and mix in, simmer on low heat for 5 minutes, stirring often. Remove from heat and set aside.
- In a large, flat pan, cast iron would be perfect, heat a little oil and warm each tortilla for a minute or two on each side, this makes them very soft so you can roll them.
- Lay a tortilla on your work surface and add some beef filling at about the point mid way between the edge and the center, make a line of filling across the tortilla.
- Roll the tortilla tightly, goal is a nice cigar sized taquito. Repeat this for each tortilla.
- Heat about 1/3 inch of oil in pan, when the oil is hot, quickly fry the taquitos to brown them, light golden color is the goal, about 1 minute each.
- Serve with dipping sauces as you desire, salsa, sour cream, and guacamole would be great choices.
Notes
Low cost.
Shortcuts: Tomato Sauce, Salsa, Sour Cream.
Provided courtesy of good friend, Jerry Juliana.
United States.
United States.
Crab Rangoon
To clear things up, this is not Chinese in origin, this is American, but does sound really good, as I love Cream cheese and crab, but I will use imitation crab for starters, easier to get and lower cost.
Ingredients
- 140 grams canned crab, drained (5 oz), see Step 1
- 125 grams Cream cheese, (4 oz)
- 1 spring onion, thinly sliced, white and green
- ¼ teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
- 18-20 wonton wrappers
- cooking oil, for frying
Instructions
- For the crab, you can use canned (drained), fresh picked, or even imitation. If using imitation, just cut each crab stick into ¼ inch pieces and use your hands to break them apart, very easy.
- In a small bowl, add the Cream cheese, crab, spring onion, garlic powder, and Worcestershire sauce. Mix until combined.
- Lay out a wonton wrapper, place about 1 teaspoon of filling in the center. Base this on the size of your wontons. The wrappers I use are about 3 inches on each side.
- Wet your finger in a small bowl of water and run it across the 4 edges, need to dip your finger in water a few times doing this.
- Now, pull up two opposite corners and press them together to seal the top,
- Now bring up the other two corners and seal them at the top and press together the 4 seams to seal them as well. Place the wonton on a sheet of parchment.
- Repeat for the remaining wontons.
To Deep Fry
- Heat about 1 to 1½ inches of cooking oil in a large deep pan or a heavy pot. You want the oil hot but not smoking.
- Carefully place the wontons in the hot oil and cook for 2 to 3 minutes, do not overload the pan, until nice and golden brown. Remove wontons to paper towels to drain. Repeat with remaining wontons. My wife is cooking the wontons on the left, I am cooking some fish on the right.
To Bake
- Preheat your oven to 220° C (425° F)
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. and arrange wontons in an orderly fashion. Spray with cooking oil, a oil mister would be perfect for this, for folks in the US, feel free to use a cooking spray of your choice.
- Another option is to lightly, and I mean lightly, brush each wonton with oil. Bake 12 to 14 minutes or until golden brown. Keep in mind baked will not be as crispy as the deep fried, but just as good in flavor.
- Serve with dipping sauces of your choice.
- I served these as a side with some fish and long beans I cooked.
Notes
The Cream cheese will cost about 60 Baht/125 grams. The imitation crab will cost about 50 Baht/140 grams. (When I buy fresh crab, I will price this once I pick 140 grams.) Figure 6 servings (3 each 6 people for appetizers), this is about 54 cents per serving.
Gulai with Boiled Eggs
This is an Indonesian egg curry recipe from a good friend. Gulai Telur is when chicken eggs are used, and Gulai Telur Itik when duck eggs are used. This sounds very good and on my to cook list. Link to the shortcut is listed in the Recipe Notes section.
Ingredients
- 4-6 eggs, chicken or duck
- ½ - ¾ cup coconut milk
- 1¼ cups vegetable stock
- 3 tablespoons onion, diced
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 teaspoon sambal oelek, or 1 chili, Shortcut
- 1 teaspoon tamarind pulp
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1 teaspoon galangal
- 1/2 teaspoon turmeric
Instructions
- For the eggs, hard boil them your favorite way but cut back on the time by 1 minute or so for a creamier yolk, if that is not desired, just hard boil the eggs as you prefer. Peel the eggs after they are cooked. If using 4 eggs, go with the lesser amount of coconut milk, if using 6 eggs, use the larger amount of coconut milk.
- In a pot, add the stock and coconut milk and bring to a boil.
- While the stock is heating, place the onion, garlic, sambal oelek (or one chili), tamarind, ginger, galangal, and turmeric in a mortar and mash with the pestle until you have a paste. You can also use a blender if you like.
- Once the stock is at a boil, add the mixture from the mortar to the pot along with the eggs. Simmer for 3-4 minutes.
- Serve as an appetizer or with rice for a main dish.
Notes
Low cost per serving.
Shortcut: Sambal Oelek.
Variant: 1. Add a slice or two of ginger to the stock when heating that for an additional flavor.
Microwave Baked Potatoes
I have not done this yet, but will soon. When I was growing up, we had a wood stove we cooked on, and it had an oven, I used to make the baked potatoes but inserted a large nail (very clean) into the potato, theory is that when the nail heats up it cooks the inside of the potato faster, seemed to work. This is on my to make list and soon. This is based on one potato per serving as a side.
Ingredients
- 1 large potato
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 3 tablespoons Cheddar cheese, shredded
- salt and pepper, to taste
- sour cream, to taste
Instructions
- Wash potato well to remove any dirt and grit, prick with a fork several times and place on a plate.
- Place in the microwave and 'nuke' the potato for 5 minutes on High power. Turn potato over and 'nuke' for another 5 minutes.
- Remove potato, cut nearly in half and spread apart, season with salt and pepper to your liking, mash just a bit with a fork, add the butter and 2 tablespoons of the cheese.
- Nuke again on High setting for 1 minute. Remove from the microwave and top with remaining cheese and sour cream to your liking, garnish with chopped chives or spring onion if desired.
Notes
Burmese Egg Curry
This sounds really tasty, on my to cook list.
Ingredients
- 8 eggs, chicken or duck
- 1 can diced tomatoes, (15 oz / 425 g)
- 3 medium onions, finely diced
- 1 bunch fresh cilantro, leaves reserved, stems finely chopped
- 6 curry leaves, optional, this is NOT curry powder
- 1 teaspoon tamarind pulp, or 1 teaspoon lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon sweet paprika
- 1 teaspoon ground turmeric
- 1 teaspoon chili powder, if Thai chili powder, go with ¼ tsp
- 1 teaspoon fish sauce, or to taste
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- ½ cube vegetable stock
- red radishes, for serving
- cucumber, sliced, for serving
- lettuce leaves, for serving
Instructions
- Heat the oil in a saucepan and add the onion, cilantro stems, tomatoes, tamarind paste, paprika, turmeric, chili powder, fish sauce, vegetable stock ½ cube.
- Simmer this mixture for 1-2 hours, stir once in a while, until it reduces, then use a potato masher to smash any lumps and make the sauce a bit smoother. Continue simmering the sauce.
- While the sauce is simmering, cook the eggs, these are hard boiled but have a creamier yolk, use your favorite method but cut back a minute or two on the cook time, then cool with running tap water and gently peel the eggs and cut in half lengthwise.
- Add the egg halves to the curry sauce and gently stir to coat the eggs, sprinkle a few cilantro leaves in and stir to mix those in.
- To serve, spoon egg halves into serving bowls and top with a few cilantro leaves and have red radish, sliced cucumber, and lettuce leaves on the side.
Notes
Shortcuts: Perfect Hard Boiled Chicken Eggs, Perfect Hard Boiled Duck Eggs, Perfect Hard Boiled Quail Eggs.
Variant: 1. Use hard boiled, whole, quail eggs in place of the chicken or duck eggs.
Deep Fried Nachos
Sounds, and looks, really good! This is a make as much or as little as you want. On my to make list.
Ingredients
- nacho chips, crushed
- tortilla chips, crushed
- nacho cheese, some shredded and some cubed
- oil, for frying
- toppings, of your choice
Instructions
- Mix together the crushed chips and just enough shredded cheese to form the mixture into balls, about golf ball size. As you form each ball, insert a cube of cheese into each one.
- Deep fry or pan fry the balls in oil until gold brown, just a few minutes, drain on paper towels.
- Top with your favorite nacho toppings as desired. Enjoy 🙂
Notes
Low cost.
Recipe and photo provided by good friend, Rachel Greenawalt, and the original recipe is here.
United States.
United States.
Dill Pickle Dip
This recipe is from a friend, and it is excellent! On my Go-To list now!
Ingredients
- 500 grams Cream cheese, softened, two standard blocks, (16 oz)
- 500 grams dill pickles, chopped, OR make from a shortcut, (16 oz)
- splash pickle juice, to taste
- 250 grams thin sliced beef, chopped, (9 oz)
Instructions
- Mix together the cream cheese and beef.
- Mix in the pickles and juice, cover and place in the fridge to chill for at least 2 hours.
- Serve with crackers.
Notes
I will price this when I make it to determine how many servings. I will say fair cost right now.
Shortcut: Quick Fridge Dill Pickles.
Variants: 1. Substitute thin sliced ham, smoked ham, or turkey for the beef. 2. Serve on toast. 3. Use as a filling in a sandwich (I can see myself doing that).
Recipe and photo provided by good friend, Amy Weckerly Shanks, and the original recipe is here.
Vegetable Wontons
These are the Chinese type of wantons that use a small square wrapper that is about 3 inches by 3 inches. These can be fried or just dropped into a broth and cooked that way, each method will be listed below. And these freeze well also.
Ingredients
- 1-2 packages frozen wonton sheets, thawed
- 2 cups green cabbage, shredded then finely chopped
- 1 medium carrot, shredded then finely chopped
- 1 bunch spring onion, green only, minced
- 3 large mushrooms, finely minced
- 1 clove garlic, smashed and finely minced
- 1 inch fresh ginger, finely minced or grated or 1 teaspoon ginger powder
- salt and white pepper, to taste
Instructions
- The reason for the cabbage and carrot to be shredded then minced is any long pieces will tear the wonton wrapper, and no one likes a torn wonton 😉
- Once the vegetables are prepped, set a small bowl of water near the filling, and line a baking sheet with a sheet of parchment.
- Pick up a wrapper, these are floured so they are much easier to work with than spring roll wrappers, and place on one hand with one corner pointing away from you, and one corner pointing towards you. Place about 1/2 teaspoon of filling in the center of the wrapper.
- Dip a finger in the water and run along a edge from the corner farthest from you to the next corner, dip your finger in water again and now run along the other edge farthest from you.
- Now take the corner closest to you and fold in half, that corner going to the corner farthest from you, to make a triangle, then use your fingers to seal the two edges. There, you just made a wonton 🙂
- Place the wonton on the parchment paper, and repeat the steps for the remaining wrappers. It goes fairly fast once you get the hang of how much filling, which is very small.
To Fry Wontons
- Heat about 1 inch of oil in a heavy pan, when the oil is hot, add wontons but do not overcrowd them. Cook for a minute or two on each side until golden and crispy, remove to paper towels to drain. Continue with more wontons as desired. Serve with a dipping sauce of choice if desired.
To use Wontons in a Broth
- Heat a broth of choice in a sauce pan, about 3 cups, chicken is a common broth used. Simmer a few fresh made wontons at a time, don't over crowd the pot, when they float to the top, they are done. Place some spinach leaves in a bowl, place wontons in the bowl, ladle some hot broth in which will cook the spinach and top with some chopped spring onion.
To Freeze Wontons
- Place a single layer of wontons on a sheet with parchment paper and place in the freezer for about 10 minutes, when good and firm, place wontons in a zip lock bag, use within 1 month.
Notes
Low cost.
Adapted from an internet recipe.
Spring Rolls aka Lumpia
These sound delicious and I just picked up several packages of spring roll sheets last week. These are Spring Rolls or Lumpia that have a very thin pastry, not Egg Rolls which have a thicker pastry. And these are outstanding! Link to the shortcut is listed in the Recipe Notes section.
Ingredients
For the Filling
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 2 cloves garlic, smashed and finely minced
- 400 grams ground pork
- 8 fresh Shiitake mushrooms, stem removed, finely chopped
- 1 1/2 cups vermicelli noodles, an 80 gram package is perfect
- 1 1/2 cups carrot, shredded
- 1 1/2 cups cabbage, shredded, packed
- 1 teaspoon cornstarch
- 1 1/2 tablespoons oyster sauce, and as needed
- 2 teaspoons soy sauce
For the Spring Rolls
- 20 spring roll wrappers, thawed
- cooking oil, for frying
- 1 tablespoon water
- 2 teaspoons corn starch
Instructions
For the Filling
- In a pot of boiling water, add the vermicelli cook for 2-4 minutes or until soft, drain, lightly chop, you want about 1 1/2 cups, an 80 gram packet is fine. It is ok if they are a bit underdone as the rolls get fried later. Set aside.
- A lot of the prep time is the shredding and chopping. Use a box shredder for the cabbage and carrots, Chop the mushrooms on a board. I doubled the recipe that is why there is so much.
- Fresh ground pork (I used pork loin for this which is lean, the mushrooms add the juiciness). I also had some shrimp we added, the shrimp were cleaned, deveined, and chopped. The shrimp is NOT cooked with the pork, add the shrimp at the very end if using.
- Heat the olive oil in a large non stick pan (big pot if doubling the recipe), when hot, add the garlic and saute for a minute until fragrant then add the pork and break up the pork as it cooks until it just turns white, as it will get cooked again.
- To the pork, add the carrot, cabbage, and mushrooms and saute for several minutes until the veggies are good and wilted. Now mix in the cornstarch, soy sauce, and oyster sauce. Saute for about a minute or until the liquid is steamed off. You want the filling sticky, not watery. Taste and season with oyster sauce as needed.
- Add the cooked noodles and remove the pan or pot from the heat.
- Mix in the noodles and cool the filling, a hot filling means your spring rolls may burst (no one likes a sloppy spring roll). So just let the pan or pot cool, or spread the filling on a baking sheet and let cool, or even place in the fridge for 5 minutes.
To Assemble the Spring Rolls
- First thing is to make the 'glue' so in a small bowl or cup, mix together the cornstarch and water, set this aside but keep it handy, this is used to seal the rolls.
- Open the package of spring roll sheets. Carefully pull off one sheet and place smooth side down on a clean counter with one corner of the sheet facing you. Very important, place a damp towel on the unused sheets, if the sheets dry out they are hard to pull apart and will tear.
- Place a tablespoon or so of filling near the corner closest to you.
- Fold the bottom (the corner closest to you) up over the filling.
- Tightly roll, the filling will spread some, that is fine. When the roll is in the widest part of the pastry (left and right corners will be on the sides of the roll) fold each side towards the center. The roll should be about 5 inches long, and should look like an envelope.
- Continue to roll, and when there is just a pointy section at the end away from you, use your finger and apply some of the cornstarch slurry you made just a few minutes ago to the edges of the pointy section (just like sealing an envelope), continue to roll and seal the edge, and just pat that seam down with your fingers. There, you just made a spring roll.
- Repeat until you have either used all the filling or all the pastry sheets. 13 more to go.
- To fry these, heat about 1 inch of oil in a pot. When hot, add 4-5 spring rolls at a time and fry, turn often, until golden brown, These cook fast so keep an eye on them. Remove to paper towels to drain and fry the remaining rolls. Perfect color.
- Let cool for a few minutes then serve hot as is or serve with a dipping sauce of your choice. My Sweet & Sour Sauce is listed as a shortcut in the Recipe Notes section.
Notes
Figure about 50 Baht for the pork. I will wing about 3 servings from this (I like spring rolls), for 3 servings this is about 50 cents per serving.
Shortcut: Sweet & Sour Dipping Sauce.
Variants: 1. Bake instead of fry, place on a rack on a baking sheet, spray with oil all sides, bake in a 200 C (400 F) oven until golden brown. 2. For the filling, use cooked and chopped bacon, cooked hash browns, and Cheddar mixed in. 3. Place 3 or 4 raisins in each spring roll if using the original ingredients listed.
Adapted from an internet recipe.
